Raised in suburbia, now living on a 14 acre prairie homestead in rural Minnesota.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Generations

Say hello to my great-great-grandpa Nydam. He came over from Holland at the end of the 1800's and settled in the Indianapolis area. I love this picture. Probably because of the chickens. Makes me feel pretty cool to have chickens, just like my great-great-grandpa had chickens.

This is my great-grandma, the daughter of the man above. I love this photo because it looks like she's about to 'give a piece of her mind' to the photographer. Something like, "what in heaven are you standing around there taking snapshots when there's a whole field of potatoes to be dug out before supper time?"

This is my grandfather and grandmother. My grandmother is the daughter to the woman above. I like this photo because it is one of the few pictures I have seen where my grandfather is smiling. My grandmother was always smiling in pictures, but I guess my grandfather preferred the stoic look.

This is my mother's mother. She grew up and lived in the London, Ontario area. I got my square nose genes from her. Also my brown eyes. She died before I was born.

And here we are, me and my parents at our home in Knoxville, Iowa in the early 1970's. I'm the one with the ears sticking out and a spoonful of cereal in my mouth. I love this picture because it gives a real image of an early time in my life, a time I obviously don't remember. You can see real things here - cereal boxes, dirty dishes, an exasperated look on my mother's face, my father ready to leave for work. Toast on a plate and a toaster on the counter top behind us. You can look at this picture and actually feel like you're there.

And finally, a not-so-old picture of my first son, taken outside in our yard when we lived at our little house in Ortonville. He was just learning to crawl. You can see stalks of sunflowers that I had planted in a small garden plot behind him.

I wish I could jump into these picture frames, to hear and see and touch everything that was happening at the times they were taken. I want to talk to the grandparents that I never knew, I want to see what my parents were like when they were the age I am now, and I want to hold my first born babe in my arms once again.